


Walking Far from Home: Prisoner's Pistol

by wilySubversionist



Series: Walking Far from Home [5]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-01
Updated: 2011-04-01
Packaged: 2017-10-17 10:40:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/176007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wilySubversionist/pseuds/wilySubversionist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You’d feel this desperate for companionship no matter who the other last survivor of your species might be. You are certain of this."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Walking Far from Home: Prisoner's Pistol

**Author's Note:**

> _"saw a prisoner take a pistol and say 'join me in song, join me in song'"_
> 
> I really don't want to be pushy about it, but highly recommend [cuing up this song as you start reading](http://youtu.be/JPYdDlJoB1k) and to begin playing it at this mark: …. It will add to your enjoyment, I promise, but it not necessary.

turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT]  
TG: where the hell are you  
TG: did you just pull some kind of rock and roll evacuation on your whole damn compound  
TG: just fucking absconding the hell out of there on a plane with buddy holly and the big bopper  
TG: singing lame tunes about holding hands with boys  
TG: because oh shit your house is in the eye of a dude trying to get a hold of you hurricane  
TT: I found a library. It’s in one of the game’s aborted notions of a temple.  
TG: ok  
TT: It’s quite interesting and presumably it’s exploration will be useful to our mutual purpose.  
TG: ok  
TT: But, alas, it is also not situated in my living room.  
TG: god ok i get it  
TT: And so it has deigned to thwart your stealthy snooping.  
TG: fuck lalonde put a handknitted magic sock in it  
TG: i just wanted to report some serious fucking news here  
TG: im putting out an early morning special edition running the presses nonstop  
TG: because i just did something stupid cool  
TG: it is literally retarded how good at this game i am  
TT: So, you got your class’ power item. Some sort of hip hop time machine?  
TG: fuck  
TG: howd you scoop me girl friday  
TT: There was a chest in the library that contained a crystal ball.  
TG: fuck really a chest  
TG: god this game is so fucking lame  
TG: is there a fairy kid with a boomerang and a bunch of fey looking maybe japanese guys running around your loser planet just opening containers willy nilly  
TT: Yes, indeed! One of them finally prised the lid off a jar of preserves I had been pining for.  
TT: Regardless how contrived the conveyance, I’m glad to have the scrying device in question. It evens the playing field for surreptitious surveillance.  
TG: great so since your bullshit game critical item ruined the surprise  
TG: seriously how fucking sweet are these timestables  
TT: I am absolutely ecstatic that you’ve finally realized your true potential as the Knight.  
TG: fuck finally  
TG: shit only took like four days  
TT: A bit longer than I had dared to hope.  
TG: whatever  
TT: Though I suppose now that you have our temporal existence at your fingertips, we can begin to make real progress.  
TG: for sure  
TG: i can go back and make egbert realize how stupid it is to listen to random ass kindergartners on the internet  
TT: I was meaning in learning the systems and intricacies of the game.  
TT: But yes, also that.  
TG: oh  
TG: so you want to stick around?  
TT: I think in this generally pointless and untenable situation, we’ve been handed a boon. We can use our now unlimited time to fully explore and unravel this game before we do anything rash that will completely alter our course.  
TG: i guess  
TG: so we should just keep playing  
TT: Yes, that’s what I advise.  
TG: aight  
TG: that isnt the dumbest fucking idea ever  
TT: Prototyping that sprite your brother’s ‘gangsta’ marionette still holds that dubious distinction.  
TG: fuck you  
TG: chilling with calsprite on lohac has been tight as hell  
TG: we be best dawgs up in here  
TT: Whatever you say, Dave.  
TT: Now that you literally have all the time in the world, wouldn’t you rather abandon your nightmarish hellscape and seek out more pleasant climes?  
TG: like where  
TG: are you proposing some sort of sleep over on your planet  
TG: i know youre just dying to braid my hair compare cup sizes and shit  
TG: but dont you see plenty of me already when we throw our crunkmagic dance parties on derse

No. You and Dave are the only people still living, and you can’t possibly see enough of him. Your respective caretakers have left traces but are for all purposes gone; John was literally trolled to death, Jade doomed by his poor judgment. Though you enjoy your planet’s color scheme and the turtles are pleasant enough consorts, you don’t think you could ever get your fill of Dave’s smirk, his smooth, pale and slightly freckled visage.

It has nothing to do with his particular face, however. You’d feel this desperate for companionship no matter who the other last survivor of your species might be. You are certain of this.

tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG]  
TT: Dave.  
TT: What exactly do you think you’re doing?  
TG: trying to get this conksuck sword out of this fucking rock  
TG: shit is unreasonable tight which is a bad thing  
TT: Your browser history belies such a possibility.  
TG: no fuck  
TG: wrong  
TG: you are wrong in a lot of ways right now  
TT: Your current efforts seem to be fruitless.  
TG: i guess  
TT: Do you have an alternative strategy?  
TG: im about two seconds away from getting uncannyathletic and doing the most limber fucking handspring off this goddamn sword hilt  
TT: Of course your personalized quest would involve finding inventive new ways to fly off handles. Have you and the mysterious Sburb programmers colluded to sap my will to live?  
TG: hey don’t knock it until ive tried it  
TT: I’ll wait.  
\-- turntechGodhead [TG] is now an idle chum! --  
TT: That looked ten times more painful than it did effective.  
TT: Though if it was an attempt to amuse me, I appreciate it.  
TG: yuk it up lalonde  
TG: not everybody can have every damn thing just handed to them by this stupid game  
TT: I resent your implication that I haven’t pulled my own weight in this endeavor.  
TG: go ahead resent away  
TG: yeah actually thats a good thing  
TG: i hope you’ve got some industrial strength huffiness going on there  
TG: get yourself in a tizzy thats caustic as fuck then send me the captchacode  
TG: i need your most acidic horseshit to eat away at this arthurian stupidity  
TT: Hmm.  
TT: Perhaps the basis for this task is the Sword in the Stone legend. Maybe you need to be pure of heart to release the weapon.  
TG: yeah ok  
TG: good call  
TG: ima gonna run around kissing baby crocs and putting out lavafires until i am a goddamn 24 carat hero  
TG: wait  
TG: nevermind  
TT: I don’t think that snapping the legendary artifact tied to your growth as a player in half was the best solution there.  
TG: welp  
TG: at least ive got this legendary piece of shit in hand now  
TT: I suppose. I’m sure if you were less impetuous we could have jointly come to a less destructive solution.  
TG: i didnt see any of your brilliant ideas in a timely manner amazing encyclopedia of strategy that you are  
TG: so fuck it  
TT. Indeed. Fuck it.  
tentacleTherapist [TT] ceased pestering turntechGodhead[TG]

An encyclopedia. It smarts like a rap to the knuckles. Your pride is wounded, but you aren’t immediately sure why.

You realized bitterly some days ago that the practice pool for you psychoanalytic skills had dwindled, and you are more and more frequently turning them on yourself. Since "What is Dave's fucking problem?" is a mindbendingly complex query, needing close observation he is denying you, you think it wise to try a different tack.

Obviously, you're upset because that is how he’s treated you, like a reference book on a shelf. Like you're handy to keep tucked away, but basically useless. It’s an uncomfortable irony (the dictionary variety): you are the one who reads others, even before you came into your own as a Seer. But in the weeks since you and Dave have begun to unravel Sburb’s inner workings, you feel as open as a trashy paperback with a broken spine. At times, he's painfully flippant, far beyond the normal Strider spitefulness. He ridicules your input as if he believes he’s gleaned all he can from your pages and has impatiently cast you aside.

Of course, this only perturbs you very slightly and it's reasonable to expect that your constrained intimacy would eventually chafe you both. He, naturally, would have had more time to adjust to your unfortunate circumstance, so your —near continual— desire for contact must appear desperate and needy. In honest moments, you admit that the appearance is rooted in truth. You are grasping in your loneliness and to counteract, you think long and hard before you pester him; you’ve restricted yourself to either exceedingly good news or dire emergencies.

Even still, you resent your extended periods of solitude. And so you sleep, communing with the Outer Gods until such time that he dozes. Then he unfailingly comes to you. Your dreamself, at least, is at no loss for company since he tossed a stream of puppets at your head and bonked you awake. You smile and nestle into a cozy pile of woolens; there is some comfort in the fact that it keeps happening, no matter what his waking mood.

It’s some comfort, too, that he’s wrong. There are whole volumes to Rose Fucking Lalonde that Dave’s never even guessed at. You have all sorts of depths he's ignorant of, so far. And you take great pride in knowing, even through his feigned independence, he will always seek them out. Dave might not be an avid reader, but he is certainly drawn in by a serial. He’s of the reoccurring kind.

tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering turntechGodhead[TG]  
TT: Based off of your recent experience with your denizen, is there any point in engaging mine?  
TG: oh hell no  
TG: if yours is half as surly and worthless well both be better off if you give that motherfucker a wide berth  
TG: useless hammering asshole  
TT: Well, I imagine mine wouldn’t be vexing in that specific way, but if you think it will be fruitless, I’ll not seek Cetus out.  
TG: yeah fuck it no reason for you to go fight some deadly douchebag what would you get anyhow grist  
TG: dont need it denizens blow end of story  
TG: are you taking notes  
TG: get one of your horrorterror issue squid ink pens start jotting shit down here  
TT: I assure you, I have made ample notes.  
TT: You hardly know whether you are coming or going, so someone must take up the slack, lest we end up as ignorant after our trials as before.  
TT: I believe your rappers, I'm uncertain from which coast they hail, perfected this concept. It’s called "checking ourselves before we wreck ourselves."  
TT: Maybe you should reacquaint yourself with the basics.  
TG: yeah yeah  
TG: gotta admit im a little bushed after being chased around by a giant maniac with a mallet  
TG: so ima gonna take a nap  
TT: Fair enough.  
TT: I’ll see you there.  
turntechGodhead[TG] ceased pestering tentacleTherapist [TT]

The dream meet-ups keep happening though you worried they would taper off over the weeks, happy rendezvous full of frantic dance and unchecked feeling. You both cut loose in your pajamas within those towers on the fluorescent purple moon; it feels so safe there.

You don’t know if he could just tell you preferred the riotgrrl style that peaked just before you both were born and therefore conjured up new records from alchemy or dream shenanigans, or if he shared your passion for the rushing rhythm of Le Tigre and L7 and Veruca Salt. Didn’t matter. You both danced until you felt refreshed, rejuvenated, then woke to the tedium of well-documented scientific inquiry and guarded communiqué. God, how you wished he was as free awake as when he dreamed.

tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering turntechGodhead[TG]  
TT: I was wondering.  
TG: oh god  
TG: terrible sign  
TG: what unbelievably twisted thing is on your mind now  
TG: dont you ever think about normal shit like ponies or kittens or justin bieber  
TT: I’m afraid your implication is so wild, I am missing it completely.  
TT: My extraordinary speculation stopping prowess is worthless when you toss such baseless accusations.  
TT: They keep ricocheting off the backstop of my insight.  
TG: baseball metaphors really  
TT: I have diverse interests.  
TG: im just saying youve never wondered about a good thing ever not in your whole life  
TG: the goddamn nightmare cephalopods have had you in a hentai headlock since the day you were fucking born  
TT: If my questions are so ghastly unpleasant, I’ll keep them to myself.  
\-- tentacleTherapist [TT] is now an idle chum! --  
TG: rose  
TG: rose no  
TG: I was just saying  
TT: I know what you were saying.  
TT: And I judge that it was meant to antagonize me and perhaps even injure my feelings.  
TG: fine i was being an asshole caught me dickhanded  
TG: but go ahead lay your dark ponderings on me  
TG: like an exquisitely knitted afghan made by a thousand psychic grandmas in diabetic comas  
TT: How do you even know what an afghan is?  
TT: Am I rubbing off on you? Will we two form the first craft circle in the Outer Ring?  
TG: i guess though itd be more of a craft line  
TG: if i was as lame as jade i would make a stupid smiley with a tongue  
TT: ...  
TG: sorry  
TG: still hard to accept shes gone  
TT: Yeah.  
TG: anyway you were saying  
TT: I am not a masochist, Dave.  
TT: I have no desire to share my musings with the unwilling or the mocking.  
TG: christ rose  
TG: im listening  
TG: im even caring  
TG: do you see this im giving a fuck as hard as i can  
TT: Very well.  
TT: I just wanted to know your thoughts on ‘The Complacency of the Learned’.  
TG:...  
TG: what  
TT: What did you think of the contents of my notebook?  
TG: you really are asking me this  
TT: Yes. Or at least attempting.  
TG: honestly it was a little dense  
TG: maybe if i was raised by a wizardfucker it would be easier to get into  
TT: So fiction without puppets can’t hold your interest?  
TG: what god no  
TT: If I were Jade, there would be some semicolons indicating jest at the end of that statement.  
TG: oh  
TG: well i guess anyhow  
TG: i couldnt get down with it but your style is pretty good  
TG: seriously the ridiculous dry shit you write is wasted on beardy fanfic  
TG: you could be trolling the shit out of rubes with your sat words and your fucking haughty tone  
TG: you’ve got talent kid  
TG: time to spread it around  
TT: And who would I troll?  
TT: You?  
TG: i mean all that is assuming better circumstances of course  
TT: Of course. I'd forgotten your unassailable faith in our victorious return home.  
TT: Well, I appreciate your sincere assessment.  
TG: ...  
TT: What?  
TG: its just weird  
TG: i thought we had a pact  
TT: Pact?  
TG: yeah a motherfucking treaty up in here new pen for every letter  
TG: you know i stole your notebooks and i know that you know and i thought we both agreed just not to mention it  
TT: Let’s say my curiosity for your critique outweighed the potential breakdown of peace accords regarding my personal journals/state secrets and your larcenous behavior.  
TG: ok cool  
TG: i did kind of like it  
TT: ?  
TG: i just wish you would lighten up sometimes  
TT: ??  
TG: even when youre all about wizards  
TG: the most whimsical shit this side of labyrinth muppets all up in david bowies bulge doing magic baby stealing leaps and shit  
TG: youre still so goddamned serious  
TT: ...  
TT: And you’re still preoccupied with puppets.  
TT: Can we ever have a conversation where your perversions don’t take center stage?  
TG: that’s it im coming over there to slap you in your dirty whore mouth  
TT: Do it.  
TT: I dare you.  
TT: You still have yet to visit me in a waking state. I can only assume you’re too frightened of my glittery rainclouds to come.  
TT: I will up the ante by employing twin canines.  
TT: This is now a double dog dare.  
…turntechGodhead[TG] ceased pestering tentacleTherapist [TT]

At first, you're miffed —okay, you are riotously pissed— that six full weeks had passed and he still had not come to LOLAR. Though, as time passes, you suspect it’s less a fault of your surroundings or person, but rather a lack of courage on his end. He is cagey and vague, less hostile than before, interspersed with sprinklings of unforeseen earnestness. It has to mean something, but you fear your interpretations are uneven and easy prey for a particularly nasty strain of confirmation bias.

Not that you don’t have some empirical bases. After a while, when you gathered to chat with the Horrorterrors (“Cash Money Calamari” he calls them), you’d retire together to a spire on Derse's moon and often unwound with quiet pursuits — reading or gin rummy, knitting and drawing or the like. So many dance parties later, Dave ran out of bumping singles and ideas for fresh beats. You enjoyed your two-person raves, but were excited that this meant less... frantic pastimes.

Your favorite was when you would lean your head on his abdomen like a living pillow and read to him aloud; he played aloof, always protested at the start, but when you hit an excellent phrase or a good plot twist, he would invariably inhale sharply. You’d come to associate the quick downward jerking of your head with particularly powerful writing, and you’re certain he enjoyed recitations as much (probably more) than you did. The closeness felt like a cold compress over your eyes. When he’d take the book from you, it felt like taking sweet cough syrup, a bracing and soothing remedy. His voice enlivening your favorite stories — it made you feel less caged by fate. Every time, no matter what book, it was still what you wanted to hear.

But no, the lack of sweet tunes didn’t bring the gentle repose you craved. Dave instead moved on to whatever the hell record was laying around, the mellow stuff. New Orleans' soft funeral brass; raunchy-hilarious slow jams of the late-90’s; Patsy Cline ballads (you figured they were issued with birth certificates in Texas); your favorite was the lilting almost-instrumental prog-rock.

And after the record started, he’d take your hand, leading you through fumbling, revolving steps. Dave actually dancing was too much to handle, and you’d offended him with insuppressible giggles more than once.

“Hey,” he’d barked. “I still plan on banging the prom queen in five years. If you want to be ready for real life, Lalonde, you better get with the program and practice.”

You did your damnedest to stifle yourself, but the best times were when you couldn’t hold it in, and he started laughing with you as you moved in wide, faltering circles.

You still hadn’t formulated any intelligent response for the instances he leaned close to you and whispered. So soft it barely happened. One hand in his, the other resting semi-coiled on his chest, you learned to decipher his breath curling in your ear and sliding past to your neck rather than strain to hear his actual voice. If you shivered against him, he was gentleman (or scared shitless) enough to never let on.

“This is the American Analog Set,” he’d say, naming the band playing, a different one every time; not once did you know who the hell he was talking about. Maybe that was okay, because the more you shook your head from ignorance, the wider he’d grin and the more he’d draw you close and whisper.

Even still, through all these sleepwalking moments, and the bond you’ve built, he has always eschewed visiting you while awake. You have your surmises, your hopeful anecdata, but most times, you feel beyond any sort of optimism. No way to be certain, and there had to be some surety before anything else...

You always wake feeling empty and alone and fighting to go back to sleep. You sometimes think of Jade, and what a blessing narcolepsy would be now. Your only consolation is your daydreams, the kind you are too embarrassed to yet bring to Derse.

TT: What do you think I should do?    
TG: try going to sleep  
TG: our dream selves kind of operate outside the normal time continuum i think  
TG: so if part of you from this timelines going to persist thats probably the way to make it happen    
TT: Ok.    
TG: and hey you might even be able to help your past dream self wake up sooner without all that fuss you went through    
TT: I think the true purpose of this game is to see how many qualifiers we can get to precede the word "self" and still understand what we're talking about.    
TG: the true purpose is to make a sprite that doesnt make me want to flog myself raw with my own brain stem  
TG: anything else is gravy    
TT: If my past self can wake up sooner, maybe I'll be the one to visit you first this time.  
TT: I'll fly by and remind you you're already awake and don't know it.    
TG: yeah thatd be cool i guess  
TG: im gonna go now    
TT: Good luck.

No. You feel your refusal vibrate deep within your body, radiating out. A tsunami of negation. Everything in you, everything you are is screaming: _No_. You won’t let it all slip away, a bright dream receding as you wake. A fantasy perhaps held on to lightly, like a beautiful sunset still too soon forgotten and replaced by others, perhaps only half-remembered and shaken loose when you rub your eyes.

TT: Dave!  
TT: Wait.   
TG: what

Magical flight via needlewands makes reaching the gate easy, and if you were being totally honest with yourself, you’d plotted the route and imagined your trip to LOHAC dozens of times before. There is no fucking way you would be trapped here, a lone prisoner (solitary, the box, forever dark), without some sort of resistance. Music, joining your voice to his, can be revolution, you think confusedly. Insurrection, especially against fate, can be beautiful. You shoot towards it, finally sure enough.

As you come plummeting down towards a tar-paper roof, you barely slow your descent with the wizarding power Dave declared masterfully ironic despite never having seen it up close. You see him there in a stiff white and black tuxedo, so much more dashing but you miss the well-known and loved purple pajamas. He gapes like an idiot or an Egbert.

You regain your feet and then your breath, panting a little. Close but not close enough. You marshal all your fortitude and speak.

“Dave. I couldn’t let you go without really seeing you.”

It sounds pathetic and completely unironic and maybe he'll laugh and you don’t give a shit. He looks as flustered as you, even though he’s not had any breakneck flight through the Incipisphere. You still don’t let yourself read into it, you're here, ready, but you swear on everything you can think of you will not be broken by this moment.

“Right. It would have been dumb to say goodbye without saying hello first, I guess.”

His accent was more pronounced than when he was asleep; you smiled, because it was your second favorite thing when he drawled unexpectedly or slipped up and announced things to a non-existent “y’all”.

Jesus, you stared and stared, waiting, not for him, but for your stomach to catch up to your head and your heart and all the rest of you. Your mind is in complete tumult, seasick but sure: You. Will. You will. You. Will you. Will.

Thankfully your hands, maybe in muscle memory-practice from all that knitting, all that clasping in dance, knew what to do first. They reached unbidden for his face, pulling you both. As you closed the indomitable space —whole planets, not five minutes before— between the two of you, your lips figured out your hands’ plan and pressed into his.

He was certainly surprised, and it took a second (a fucking _lifetime_ ) for him to press back into you. As your mouths blossomed into each other, your tongues touched and surged and wilted, arms like vines entwined and circled. One of your hands stayed at his face, tracing the silky skin just under the plastic arm of his iShades.

He breaks the kiss, which is good, you thought then, because, God, you never would have. His glasses are askew and you looked in each others' eyes and tried to absorb, to drink as deep as possible.

You have to wake up. One of you has to wake up. Because you will kiss him again and break off and he will kiss you again, again and again until he says, “Remember, Rose. You have to remember.” And it’s already a command you can neither disobey nor truly keep; to hear it again will crush you yet another time. You _must_ wake up.

For now, all you feel is his heat against you, but you struggle to beat it back. To wake out of this horrible limbo, possible while both you and your doppelganger in the Dersian tower dream duplicate the same unreal moment, a memory you share. One of you has to wake up, because you have to keep going. You have to implement the plan, have to gather necessary information, converse with the white text informant. You have to reach Dave, Dave who has never danced with you and doesn’t know your touch, so that you can break the world and remake it, in the image of your own heart.


End file.
